


Feel the Darkness

by 1FoxyAlex1



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Dark, Gen, Had a heart, Merchant of Death Tony Stark, Morally Grey Tony Stark, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Slightly Vigilante Tony Stark, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1FoxyAlex1/pseuds/1FoxyAlex1
Summary: He closed his eyes and took his last breath.Tony Stark died in Siberia, alone and far away from his home and loved ones.But fate has other plans for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first try at fanfiction. Read and enjoy if you can.
> 
> English is my third language and I’m still learning it, so if you notice any mistakes point them out please, so I can correct them.

He should have known 

Yes

He should have

It’s quite interesting, really. Human nature is very interesting in itself. We never think that misfortune, some kind of disaster and misadventure could happen to us. We never think that one day we might get in a car accident, get bankrupt, get in a hospital or even die. We never do. But we think the same things about the others, AND the others think the same about the rest. And the funny thing is, the “rest” is actually us. 

Logically, after all the shit that happened in his life, he SHOULD have known that something else was going to happen too, that it wasn’t going to happen to any other person.

And he calls himself a “Futurist” (Pathetic)

He’s sure that even if he had known that something WAS going to happen, he wouldn’t have known that it was going to be this, that it was going to break every level of DISGUSTING that he has ever seen. He was very familiar with the concept of betrayal. All the lessons he had learnt were bitter, but they gave their fruit.

But even with all the experience he had had with it, he was TOTALLY unprepared for this. His mind still couldn’t take it even now.

He was mentally broken. (Physically too, you dumbass…)

He didn’t make friends easily, almost everyone familiar with him knows that. He needed time to come out of his “shell”, break it and show the real him. Not all of the avengers saw the man underneath the bravado, after everything that has happened, the ones that didn’t never will…

And now. One of the few persons he opened up to. One of the few persons he has actually trusted! TOOK THAT TRUST… _a~nd…_

No… no.

He didn’t throw it in the mud.

He took it, and he threw it into the most fiery acid that has ever existed. An acid that burnt and perished everything it came in contact with. No going back. If you’re fast enough you can get the burnt and mutilated pieces out, but never put them together again. 

Though that doesn’t matter now, does it?

Too late.

Steve beat him up black and blue. (Blue and red will be more accurate)

Cruelly. Coldly. 

He did this all. Killed police officers, spit in the face of 117 countries, fought his teammates, heck, even took his other teammates to fight with the others, made us fight each other like dogs. He dumped a tunnel on civilians. CIVILIANS. Innocent people that were driving home from work or going to meet their parents, their children, their girlfriends and boyfriends. There were kids in there that either will never see the light of day again, or will be traumatized from being under the rubble for so long. Not to mention the injuries, how many crippled…

He did this

For a brainwashed

HYDRA

Assassin…

For a killer

For the MURDERER of his parents.

Oh God… his parents.

Just thinking about it now was making Tony ashamed in himself. His Father, his poor father. Half of Tony’s life passed in a bitter lie. All this time he hated, outright loathed his father. Yes, they never got along, his father never paid attention or praised him but… it was never so bad for him to hate Howard. After the “accident” he blamed him, he blamed his father for taking his mother from him. One of the few things that could’ve brought him happiness. His sweet, innocent mother. He would give anything just to feel her hug one more time. That warmness and love that radiated from her, to feel the tender kisses to his forehead.

He loved his mother. 

Howard never sugarcoated anything, he showed Tony every mistake he had made, criticized and advised him how to improve them. Tony didn’t like that much, he wanted approval, he wanted his father to be proud of him (He always was) so he tried harder and harder, but something always lacked. He may have gotten it one day. He may have…

Something rang in his ear. It felt like someone came up to him, close and personal, and put his mouth into his ear. For a moment he thought he felt the wetness of the “one’s” mouth.

“Every person to whom you give your trust, you also give a sword. He can either protect you with it or destroy you”

A shiver went down his spine. It was Howard’s voice. He heard those words and forgot them instantly, now he wished he hadn’t. He gave his trust to too many people. Why’d he trust Natasha again? I mean, trust is like virginity, you lose it once and forever. Something went horribly wrong. He went soft.

He forgot Obie.

And now look at him. Cast and forgotten by most of his “trusted ones”

Did they ever even consider him a teammate?

Trust is a two way bridge. Was he naive enough to consider that they trusted him?

All the salty faces he got after Ultron. How everyone seemed to flinch and get nervous when he mentioned that he was going into his workshop. How they stopped thanking him for all the new weapons and upgrades he did. It all came back and hit him full force. Like a bullet through the chest and out. Maybe it would’ve been better if he was shot, because comparably this hurt more.

Was he really that insignificantly to them? So small, so tiny that they could throw him under the bus and step over his broken and twisted corpse like it was an everyday routine for them?

He was dust that was thrashed from a coat. (Not a question anymore~?)

(What if it _was_ a daily routine for them?)

It makes sense. He dealt with the press, Organized their PR, gave them a place to live, money and tech, He took the falls when their missions went wrong. Always the scapegoat. If something goes wrong then blame Tony. Everyone is just so sure that he had a hand in every bad thing, every catastrophe that happened these days. It was funny at first, but then it became worse, and worse, and worse. 

An interesting thought surfaced in his mind. He always tried to make the world a better place, but when life just keeps _beating him down_ , then maybe his views of life do not match reality.

He’d been lured into a trap. SHIELD has known all his weaknesses and desires. They knew he just wanted to be accepted.

**Acceptance**

It brought a frozen smile onto his face.

A face that ain’t gonna be so pretty anymore.

The concrete on which he was laying was cold. He may be in his suit but the cold radiating from the floor combined with the fact that he was in a frozen tundra: Siberia, made his ears tingle.

His suit was mutilated and a big shield shaped Grand Canyon flaunted in the thoracic part of his suit.

It was made by the same shield that is stuck in the cold concrete in 2 millimeters from his nose. It’s just stuck there like a damn Ferris Wheel. All red and blue and _shiny_. And he looks at it. Wide eyed and shaky breathed, but he can’t look away.

The bottom part of the shield that’s stuck in the floor is splattered with blood and… is that skin?

Oh… yeah…

How had this happened again? 

(You’re smart, remember)

The fog in his head didn’t give any indications of ceasing. Just clicks and ticks here and there. (Like the sound that Geiger counter makes, hmph. Is that your mind breaking?~)

Yeah, let’s remember.

* * *

_He watched the tape in silence. He never really felt so many emotions conflicting with each other in his body before. Was he going to explode?_

_Tony’s body didn’t move. His thoughts preoccupied with the choking sounds his mother was making while the Winter Soldier was breaking her neck. Her screams_ …

_He found the courage to look at Steve and he saw something there that he didn’t like. He wasn’t surprised nor he was horrified at what he saw._

_Bad thoughts began surfacing in his mind while he was staring. He began to feel hot all over and barely held his shaking limbs in place. He had to know._

_“Did you know?” The words left his mouth like venom drooling from one’s mouth._

_“I didn’t know it was him” Tony clenched his jaw at the excuse and tensed all over because it was an answer on his own._

_“Don’t bullshit me Rogers. Did. You. Know.” He knew the answer, but he really wanted to cling into the little piece of hope he had left._

_“Yes” something shattered._

_Steve knew_ …

_A shiver ran through his whole body starting from his heart._

_Anger, Hurt and malice filled him_

_Fury surged through him like molten lava, through his brain, his bones and into his every cell. His chest burst in flames that was fueled by his fury. A fire storm arose in his soul that burnt to ashes every rational thought he had along with the bridges that he had built with Rogers._

_He glanced at Barnes for a second. Oh, how he wanted to see his crushed skull under his feet, his bloodied face and brains splattered on the walls. He wanted to kill him with the painfullest way possible. Maybe skin him alive and turn him inside out. Maybe torture him with his Soldier coding, put him on a stake, torture him with water, beat him up till he has no clean skin on his body. And he wanted to do this in front of Steve’s eyes, to show him what happens to traitors, he wanted him to watch his friend be tortured and die. To hear him beg for forgiveness._

_These thoughts scared him for a moment. Where had all the violence come from? But he was too angry to think about it any longer._

_He lashed out._

_A strike after a strike. Metal to metal. Screech and sparks._

_Every hit was strong and brutal. None holding back._

_He tried to inflict as much pain as possible._

_For a second he doubted himself. What was he doing? What was he going to do?_

_Oh, what a mistake. Steve saw his doubt and tackled him to the ground. Such a dick move._

_He hit him with the shield over and over. He felt his ribs snap, his suit buckle under the pressure and metal enter his chest cavity. Steve shoved his shield into his reactor. Tony’s heart almost stopped and it would’ve stopped if he hadn’t taken it out years earlier. It was over, he couldn’t move, they could’ve ended this right then and there._ (You really believed that?)

_Steve didn’t stop. He began attacking his helmet._

_He hit him over_

(Oh God, he’s not stopping)

_And over_

(He’s gonna kill me)

_And over_

(I’m going to die here)

_And over again._

_His helmet broke and exploded through the bunker like shrapnel from one of his bombs._

_Tony made a disgusting wet noise from that last hit._

_That noise woke Steve up. He looked at Tony with wide eyes (two lil ice cubes) and held onto the shield like it was the savior himself that came down from heaven to protect him. And Tony saw the devil in that shield as it was hanging right above his head._

_Before he understood what he was doing the shield came down. Steve coming to his senses tried to move the trajectory of the hit as much as he could, but still not enough_ …

_Tony felt that. That Pain. He felt the shield go through his cheek and cut through skin and muscle. Many would compare it with butter and knife, but it was more like a jagged knife against a bread._

_Tony’s head sharply turned left. Hitting the floor and probably cracking his cheekbone. Blood, saliva and mucus splashed to the ground (like the bread crumbs?)_

_The sound of the shield crashing into the ground stunned him for a moment. He tried to lift his hands and bring them to his mouth but they just jumped up and down like on the strings of an inexperienced puppeteer._

‘What’s happening?’  
_His vision was strongly blurred. Either from the raging pain or the fresh tears he couldn’t decide. He didn’t know, he couldn’t think. The only thought surfacing in his brain (its resembling mashed potatoes more at this point) was a hopeless and slightly insane_

‘WHAT’S HAPPENING?’

_Steve woke from the daze. Looked at his handiwork and turned to the “precious”_

_Barnes looked at Steve and then at Tony_

“What’d you do?!”

_Steve panicked and began looking around, tossing and turning like something was going to come out of the ceiling and attack him._

_Hi dropped a shuddered breath and stood up._

_Tony was still facing the shield. Unmoving._

“Let’s get out of here”

“But what about him?” _Barnes at least seemed to think with his head._

“He’ll find a way out” _Barnes wasn’t so sure and looked unconvinced but decided to follow Steve’s logic. After all Steve knows him better. And they retreated_

 

That’s what happened.

He chuckled. A spasm of pain exploded on his face, but he couldn’t hold it in. After all life has never joked on him so hard, so why not laugh at it? That’s the least he can do.

He knew he was gonna die here, but he couldn’t make himself lose the smile. He’s sure that FRIDAY sent a SOS message to Rhodey and Pepper, but they won’t make it in time, nobody will.

It pains him to do this to his friends, his real friends, but he was tired, exhausted and wanted to rest. 

He just wanted to die. For the pain to be over.

He found the release joints on his suit and opened it. At least like this he’ll die faster.

He was already pretty confused and shivering of cold. His movements were slow and labored.  
His hands pale and shaking.

His ribs hurt, his head hurt, his legs hurt, but his face was worst of it all. A stabbing, cutting pain engulfed his whole face, as if someone had accidentally desided to skate on it.

He fell to the floor. His shivering increased and he couldn’t think, his thoughts too sluggish to make sense. Blood began pooling around his head, some getting into his throat that made Tony gag and choke on his spit and blood.

He felt his heart getting slower and slower. 

He felt dizzy as if he was running along in someone else’s body  
He closed his eyes and took his last breath.

Tony Stark died alone in an abandoned HYDRA bunker in Siberia miles away from his home and loved ones.


	2. Meeting Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn’t upload it for a while, really sorry for the delay.

The moment of his death was strange. He always thought that death was going to be painful, filled with grief and scary. He thought he was going to be in denial and try to fight death, to live longer, to not let his loved ones shed tears over his unmoving body. But it was something else entirely. He didn’t feel scared, but relieved. He didn’t feel any pain nor was he in grief. He knew it was inevitable and he accepted it. He was in peace.

The transition moment was also odd. One moment he’s on the floor barely breathing, choking on his blood and retching, the other moment something punches him in the chest and the lights get knocked out. Like the candle of his life getting blown.

Such a sticky end.

Moments later darkness fell. He was very disoriented and couldn't understand where he was, couldn't remember what happened. It surrounded him, the dark, the unforgivable blackness that ate up every inch of space that he could see without mercy. It was still and dense like a rock. He felt very cold, and the place was too silent, like a grave. He shuddered and tried to breathe but his breath caught in his throat because there was _no oxygen._ Panic surged through his body like an electrical shock. He tried to move, to reach something, to touch something, but his bones were too stiff and his joints too hard. The darkness was sticky like glue, holding him in place and not letting go. It was hugging him like a child and whispering in his ears, telling him that it was his friend, that he shouldn’t be afraid. It was filling him with itself, entering his body through his nose, his mouth, his eyes and ears. 

A spurt of burning pain flowed all over his body, starting from his head and reaching his feet. It felt like boiling from the inside.

He tried to scream, to produce any kind of sound, but every time he tried to open his mouth it filled with ink and his tongue tied itself in a knot.

Tony tried to move his limbs, to trash around and get away. Nothing happened, it was as if his body belonged to someone else, someone who died and was undergoing postmortem rigidity. 

‘Help me!’

His thoughts were in chaos. They were like multiple thread balls of the same color mixed up together, trying to catch the one you needed was very difficult at least, and almost impossible at worst.

Then something happened. 

A flash of light exploded in his face with the sound of a jet flying right beside his ear. The shock wave or the so called “sonic boom” exploded and made him go deaf. Tony put his hands in front of his body in an “x” shaped shield and tried to hold the little balance he had. His clothes fluttered violently and the light engulfed the whole space making the darkness retreat.

He couldn’t resist the power of the blow and flew backwards with a violent jerk, making a half backflip and ramming face down onto the floor.

For a split second he was very confused with the fact that he didn’t feel any pain.

Despite not feeling any pain the mechanic groaned loudly, clicking his teeth together.

He gathered all the power he had (and god, did he feel overly exhausted) to stand up and try to make sense of what was happening.

He put his shaking limbs onto the floor and pushed himself up thinking that it shouldn't have been as difficult as it was.

Spots danced in front of his vision. Occasional dark lines appearing and disappearing in a flash. He blinked the spots from his vision and rubbed his eyes.

It felt like someone poured wet sand into his eyes and then sew them together with a thick wire.

Tony looked around in despair, his knees barely holding him upright. He could see his body, that was a first.

It felt like he was having a hangover without the all too familiar thumping in his head, but the dizziness was as present as ever.

He was clothed in a dark jacket and jeans.

Everything was pitch white. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. No other color, only his clothes. There wasn’t even a dirty spot for a change. 

The only thing he could smell was the smell of the leather of his jacket.

Were they going to torture him with white? He was sure that he had heard of that method of torture once.

His eyes danced across the room, taking all the details into account, but the bad thing was that _there were no details!_

His shoulders hunched. It was unexplainable, but he was feeling very gloomy and sad. Nothing was making sense, he was familiar with sudden mood changes, but this was something else entirely. 

Melancholy and hopelessness gripped him in a steely fist that was ready to squeeze him and make all his internal organs burst out of his body at any given moment.

He was so weak...

Walking wasn't the wisest idea as he stumbled and fell to his knees. Sweat rolling down his forehead and onto his nose. He caught his head with his two hands and squeezed as hard as he could. His ears folded under the pressure but it was the only thing he felt. Tony gripped at his hair and pulled in an attempt to feel _pain_ , to know it wasn’t just a fucked up dream he was stuck in, but he didn’t feel _anything._

He tried to inhale one more time. It worked, oxygen filling his lungs was a bliss, like he didn’t notice that his body was incredibly dusty and needed polishing. 

It felt good, yes, but how could he survive all this time without breathing? 

No discomfort. No oxygen deprivation.

Something didn’t feel right. Something lacked. Something very important. He brought his hands down and looked at them. They were a purplish-grey hue, shaking, and oh, so, so cold… like he was…

Like he was **dead.**

A chain of chills ran down his body.

And then he finally noticed it. Something in his chest, or, more specifically, the lack of it. He put his hand on the center of his chest, moving it several times from one spot another. In his panicked state he touched his wrist to double check it.

His breathing quickened vastly and his eyes widened.

His heart wasn’t beating. Oh God. _His heart wasn’t beating._

He quickly put two fingers to his neck, then to his wrist again in a desperate attempt to feel something, a little thump or resistance on his skin, but nothing happened.

He licked his cracked lips and brought his hands to his face, putting his sweaty palms onto his face. Something strange passed through his fingertips. His face wasn’t as smooth as it had to be. Something was stretching through the left corner of his mouth and to his cheek, something broad and rough and _fleshy._

Everything came back to him in a flash. 

The accords. The fight in the airport. Him going to help. Steve betraying him. His parents. _death_.

There was a moment of uncertainty that passed. The air became thick with pressure and everything suddenly became too loud, even when there was no other sound except his uneven breathing.

Tony hitched, a horrible choking sound coming from his mouth. Tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down from his sockets and onto his pale cheeks like raindrops on a car window in autumn. The man's chest moved down to his knees, almost hugging them. He started making baffling sounds between weeping and blubbering. Trying to hold himself together didn’t work, he held all of this in for so long, it was natural that it was going to open like a dam and wash everything in its way once, and what better time could he choose? He was dead.

Oh God, he was dead.

He kind of already guessed that all the shitty things that could happen _will_ , surely, happen to him. But this was already too much, how could he be okay with the fact that he was dead? 

He felt the taste of the scream that was coming on his tongue. Bitter and sour. Like a bile of vomit.

He let it out.

A scream of hysteria and despair, coming out in several waves. It ran through his mouth like shards of glass. Piercing his throat and mouth. All the terror, all the betrayal he had to go through, all the death and loss he had seen, all of it came out with that scream.

* * *

Virginia “Pepper” Potts was sitting in a hospital room beside Rhodey that hasn’t woken up yet. He was covered with white sheets and beeping machines were surrounding him. The smell of medicine was making Pepper lightheaded. She watched the steady rise and fall of Rhodey’s chest. If he had died, Tony would’ve never forgiven himself. But he’s still going to blame himself for this, she knows, that’s just who he is. There has been some irreparable damage done to Rhodey’s spine. He would never walk again. These thoughts brought tears to her eyes, but she never let them fall.

The fact that Tony wasn’t here was worrying her greatly. Rhodey was his best friend. And that meant a lot to him. Loyalty and trust was a very important thing for Tony and he wouldn’t sell his friends even if his life depended on it.

She just has to wait for Tony to come back and he will find a solution. She’s sure he will. 

She got up from her chair to go get some coffee as she was quite sleepy, but the moment she took a step something burst in her chest. It felt like someone dropped a bucket of icy cold water into her body. Her heart tingled and she leaned onto the wall to regain her balance.

She didn’t feel any pain, but… a parasite called “panic” showed its head. 

Something was very, very wrong.

Her phone buzzed on the table

She looked at it, it’s screen glowing with the callers ID.

Her eyes tracked the phone and stared at it.

Pepper didn’t hesitate, she ran to the phone as fast as she could and clicked the green button to answer the call.

FRIDAY’S voice could be heard.

“I’ve lost contact with boss!”

A dozen needles danced across her back.

JARVIS was one thing, but hearing FRIDAY being scared was another.

“His last known coordinates are-” 

Pepper fought the murkiness in her head and listened to the coordinates.  
Siberia? What was he even doing in Russia?

Rhodey was as still as he was when she entered the first time. 

“What happened, FRIDAY?” She demanded, the uncertainty of the situation choking her a little.

“Boss went to Siberia to help Rogers and Barnes neutralize the other Winter Soldiers, but the situation went out of control pretty fast and Boss attacked Rogers”

Other Winter Soldiers? Went out of control? Tony attacked Steve?

These things didn’t make any sense to Pepper.

“FRIDAY, I need the footage from the suit, send it to me as fast as you can, I’ll send a search team for him”

She turned off the phone.

* * *

Tony had no idea how much time had passed, but he knew that it was enough for him to get himself together and stop crying like a little baby. 

The tears dried on his face making his skin feel like rubber. The inventor sat on his knees, staring at the floor.

He felt better, lighter, like he had just dropped a big weight that he had been carrying around his whole life. It was freeing.

How could he not notice it before?

But it wasn’t the time to think about things like that, he had to find out where he was, why he was here, and why he wasn’t dead. (But he _was_ dead. Then maybe he should find out why he wasn’t fully dead?) So he stood up, feeling some kind of strange energy buzzing at his fingertips and hugging his body like a snake, ready to throttle him at any given moment.

He stared at his hands again. They were still slightly purple, it was obvious that his blood circulation wasn’t working, if he had blood at all. 

But the skin was becoming purple when a man's body was in the process of decaying. Something hit him like a rock. 

WAS HE GOING TO DECAY?

His body shook at the thought. Another set of chills running down his body.

(Don't think about it)

Yeah, for the time being, maybe it will be for the best.

The wound on his face was fully healed and didn’t hurt a bit (Can you even feel pain?) but a long, jagged scar still remained there. 

He decided to send his thoughts to another path. Why did he get so violent with Rogers?

Now that he looked at it, he shouldn’t have attacked Barnes, but he was so angry it HURT. 

The moment he saw Steve's face he knew what was going to happen, that didn't mean he liked it, but he had known that he won't be able to remain in control of his emotions.

If only Steve had told him. 

Actually, why didn’t he?

His brows furrowed at that. 

_Trust_ again?

 _"Teammates shouldn't keep secrets from each other"_ Steve's "righteous" voice echoed in his mind like an old movie quote.

Yeah... Of course.

All those lectures about keeping information from them. Such a waste of time, he could've invented something productive instead of all that bullshit.

His trail of thoughts was interrupted by the sound of wings flapping. It was coming from right behind him, and made him jump a little as he thought that he was all alone in this place.

Tony turned around.

A pitch black crow was flying around the place. 

He watched it fly in silence, his eyes tracking all of its movements, every flap of its wings and every turn of its head.

When the crow understood that Tony had noticed him, it flew down and landed on the floor, tilting its head left.

Something tickled inside Tony’s chest. It was _examining him_.

The crow was big and black, the only place being a different color were its eyes, and the cause of that being the rooms whiteness reflecting in its orbs.

Confusion was written all over Tony's face.

He liked crows, but in this situation? No, thank you.

The crow made a “caw” sound and started _melting_ like a candle in a church. Drops of some kind of black substance began appearing on the floor mixed with feathers. 

Tony was quite surprised at the sudden turn of events and his eyes widened greatly at the scene, his hands protectively clasping each other behind his back.

The smell of ink spread pretty quickly over the room and reached his nose reminding him of Howard’s lab, all the old papers scattered around, especially the typewriter that Howard used.

He’s sure that if he had a functional heart it was going to be beating very furiously at the moment, because this was goddamn scary, this was unexplainable and impossible. 

Him being dead, appearing at heck knows where, and now crows melting in front of his eyes.  
His face morphed into a grimace of confusion and slight disgust at the scene. 

He took a step back.

 _Finally_ it fully melted, only leaving several pools of black on the white floor. It looked like oil, but it smelled like ink. Maybe he should go check it out? It might help him get out of here… Uh… Somehow?

But he didn’t have such a chance as the substance began bunching itself up. It was a sight to be seen. 

The pools began stretching up to one point like a metal to a magnet, wrapping themselves around each other and blending together. It took Tony some time to understand that the substance was forming something. Something human like.

The first wave formed the skeleton of the being and it’s organs, for a second he was able to see the unbeating heart, the lungs, the stomach and a bunch of other organs of a humans body. They were all dripping the dark, oil like substance that they were made of. Small drops forming and falling. It was disgusting come to think of it, but they were all black and murky, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be. The second wave consisted of the remaining pools wrapping themselves around the skeleton in a protective hug, they circled around it for a few seconds, making somersaults and finally hardening in one place forming the muscles. The third wave didn’t happen, the substance that was already on the being transformed by merging with itself and formed it’s skin and clothes.

He thought that the being was going to be fully black, but it somehow changed its skin color the moment it was fully formed.

Now that it was over, Tony had a chance to look at it.

It was a young woman. 

He blinked twice just to be sure.

(What?)

She had pale skin, thought not as white as his, but it was still sickly white. Short, black and oily hair that was pointing in weird directions, looking uncombed and strange. A petite nose and lips. Her jaw was firm and elegant, cheekbones sharp. Two big golden eyes looked at him with such interest that for a moment he thought that it was him who just _appeared out of a black pool on the floor._ She had grayish bags under her eyes that did not only not make her look like a slob introvert that lived only on coffee and internet, but they even added expressiveness to her face, as if they were meant to be there from her very birth.

Overall, her body structure was very attractive, despite her being the same height as him. 

(And appearing out of a melted crow)

He grimaced.

In spite of all her attractiveness, she had something dark in her that made his whole body go more cold than it already was. Something sinister and deadly, like she wouldn’t hesitate to rip his eyeballs out and make him juggle with them.

“I’ve been waiting for you” she chuckled. Her voice echoed in the room cheerfully, bouncing of the walls and hitting his ears like spears made of hot iron. Despite its cheerfulness, her voice was steely and cold, fully calculated and calm.

His vision blackened a little at the edges, similar to how a broken TV would glitch.

They looked each other in the eye, none daring to move an inch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Point at any and all mistakes you see. Also tell me what you don’t like in my writing so I can improve, or praise me if you want, your choice.
> 
> Thank you for tolerating this story :3


	3. The Meaning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, this took forever.

Her eyes were gorgeous. The irises were a golden color, yes, but Tony has seen too much gold in his life to know the color by heart. This was an entirely different shade, like the gold was dropped into a bucket made of bronze that was full of evening’s sun rays in liquid form. Absolutely breathtaking. They gained his attention almost immediately when he saw them. These two little beauties had something magnetic in them, something he couldn’t resist. Her body was of a young woman, but her eyes were of a being that has seen one too many things, screaming intelligence and life experience at him.

But they were also alarmingly sinister.

Just one look, _one_ glance from her was enough to punch the oxygen from his lungs and transform his knees into jello. He had to use all the will-power he had not to buckle over under the pressure of those eerie little things. They were paralyzing him, as if he had looked at the Medusa from the old Roman myths. 

A shaky smile graced his lips.

(At least I didn’t turn into a rock)

Every beautiful thing has its price, and this was hers, whoever she was.

She was dressed similarly to him. Dark jacket, dark jeans and boots.

His eyes narrowed.

Was she the one beyond all of this?

Tony wasn’t sure about anything anymore, she may as well be a hallucination, _he_ may as well be _actually_ dead.

What if all of this is, in fact, happening in his dying consciousness? If everything is just a feverish illusion of his brain shutting down?

After all, humanity knows laughably slim about what happens to a person after death.

He never believed in the afterlife, God, and other religious things. No God will let so much violence happen in the world he created, no God will be so cruel and ignorant, but _this_ here, _this_ wasn’t tying up with most of his looks at life, his beliefs and knowledge.

This was opening an entirely new perspective on life, on the universe as a whole.

He noticed that the being (and he refused to think that she was really a woman) was politely waiting for him to regain his composure after the horror he had witnessed and been through. It tried to act as less intimidating as possible, probably not to scare him off.

Tony straightened and tried to look as confident as ever, but it was obvious that his attempt was a complete failure, because even an untrained child would notice his clenched fists and overly stiff jaw.

“How’d you like it?” It was so sudden that Tony didn’t catch it at first. Her voice was _too_ casual for a situation like this, akin to how a person would ask his friend if he liked the ice-cream they had just ate. 

The question was lost on Tony. (What’d she mean?)

He opened his mouth to try and answer, and just stood there from 2 to 3 seconds with his mouth open, contemplating if it was a good idea. He clicked his tongue and wetted his lips.

Well, he couldn’t just ignore her.

“How’d I like what?” He forced the words out of himself. His voice seemed odd to himself, like he was hearing it for the first time in a year. It was scratchy and too low for his own liking.

Also the situation seemed a little unfair. Shouldn’t he be the one asking questions? 

“Well...” she blinked a few times and brought her hand to her chin “living, of course.”

That shook Tony to his very core. Whatever his core was now. He did come to the conclusion already, but hearing somebody confirm it was an entirely different thing. It was official now. He was dead, and he didn’t know what was going to happen to him next. There was nothing that Tony loathed more than not _knowing_ , not _wielding_ the information he needed. That was all he was about, doing and knowing what others couldn’t. 

What was her end game?

Was she here to punish him for all the sins he has committed during his life? 

His stomach tied itself in a stony knot.

It felt strange. Not hearing the sound of his heart. Not feeling it hammering in his chest during a stressful situation. 

_A proof that Tony Stark has a heart_

His throat closed up and tears welled up in his eyes. 

Yes, he did have a heart, but what _good_ was it for now?

To try and regain as much control of the situation as he could, he made a two way step.

“Who are you?” He asked a little accusingly. 

Changing the subject and becoming the one asking the questions.

The question did really interest Tony.  
Obviously this creature could manipulate some kind of black substance to its will, resurrect the dead, shape-shift, and he was sure that it could do many other things he hasn’t seen yet. He could feel the raw, freezing power radiating off of it in waves.

The woman just raised an eyebrow and smiled innocently.

“I’m Death, Anthony”

Hearing his name roll of her tongue made a multitude of emotions stir in his body.

Oh.  
_Oh..._

No rest for the wicked, huh?

Realization dawned on him, which, he was sure, showed on his face.

He swallowed excessively, his posture wilting with the revelation, his eyes that still didn’t get rid of the remnants of the tears blanked.

This _did_ strangely make a lot of sense, with all the weird shit happening the last few years, this wasn’t _that_ hard to accept.

After meeting Norse Gods, robots trying to destroy Earth, aliens trying to take over, people exploding like fireworks.

Yes, he _should_ have expected something more fucked up happening.

As always.

Tony’s life ladies and gentlemen.

Of all the people on Earth, Death had to come after him. After the biggest mass murderer of the 21-t century.

The white room was beginning to get on his nerves strongly. The absence of other colors irritated him, made his body be pricked by invisible needles.

He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, even if that meant that she had to remove him from existence.

A question popped up in his mind.

Was his body somewhere on Earth being eaten by worms while this was his soul? (Souls don’t exist! What are you even thinking about?)  
But Death didn’t exist two minutes ago either, did it?

So what if God existed too? What if he was just an unemotional sadist that liked to see its creations suffer?

“I see the questions burning in your mind” she said apathetically. 

He looked at her face. She just kept staring, unmoving. 

“But before you voice them” Tony stiffened “I asked you a question first” She tilted her head to the left “How’d you like living?”

Millions of possibilities of different answers filled Tony’s head akin to how a waterfall would fill a huge pool.

Truthful. Deflecting. False. Pleasing. Happy. Sad. Cold. etcetera, etcetera.

Some of those were dangerous to say in front of an immortal being that could make you suffer for whole eternity.

Some came to his mind to butter her up and make his fate more tolerable. 

But almost none of them coincided with what he wanted to say.

He had nothing to lose. He may as well answer truthfully.

“Well... yes and no” he looked up at her, his eyes filled with sadness and grief.

He remembered Rhodey, his loyalty and friendship. He remembered Pepper and his mother, their love and patience. He remembered Happy and his AI’s, their respect and understanding.

“Life has sun, loyalty and love” he smiled.

Then he remembered Afghanistan. Remembered his past mistakes haunting him and his closest ones. Remembered creating Ultron. And finally, he remembered Rogers ramming his shield into his face.

“But it’s also full of violence, cold and pain” 

Tony’s face became distant. Dull eyes looking into nothingness.

“And most importantly...” he sighed tiredly “I haven’t found any meaning in it”

His face was like an open book at this point. So much pain, so much disappointment in life, in people.

Death chuckled sarcastically.

“There _was_ a meaning when you first came into the world of the living” she put her thumb to her lip, biting it gently “But you lost it along the way”

Tony’s eyes fell to the floor and he hanged his head down. All this years of him trying to do something good, to help the ones in need, to make the world a better place...

Pointless.

_He wasted his life._

A whole existence with no meaning.

A whole life with no point.

A wasted opportunity.

He would’ve dealt with it if it was just _his_ life, something that he _owned_

But his life wasn’t his own.

Yinsen gave his life for him.

Soldiers in Afghanistan gave their lives for him.

He belonged to them.

He didn’t just waste his own life, he wasted theirs as well.

Pain coated him like a blanket (Blankets can choke people too, you know?) and he could practically feel her golden eyes staring at him from the other side of the room. 

“Look at me” her voice wasn’t accusing or demanding, it felt more like a request.

He obliged.

His eyes met hers again and he knew that something was going to happen.

The ground shook viciously making him lose his balance and fall down like a toddler. A black line appeared on the ground and moved with such speed that it split the room in half in milliseconds. Everything got illuminated by a bright light that burned his vision and made him close his eyes. 

He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t even surprised.

He opened his eyes and saw only brightness. 

Did an angel deign to come down and meet the beings they ignored and shrugged off for ages? 

A chuckle escaped his trembling lips.

They were in for a surprise.

Earth was neck deep in a swamp called “Humanity”. Beings that despised war and violence but submitted to in nonetheless. Beings that wanted compassion but acted aggressively to the others.

His vision cleared up and he was able to see the room again.

Half of it was still the pitch white he got to hate, the other half was fully black, he could feel the blackness sucking up all the light it came into contact with.

And in the middle of the split, in the place where white and black collided, was her.

But with a slight twist.

The part of her that was in the black zone on the left side was white, and the other part on the right, which was in the white zone - black.

White and black.

Evil and good.

Negative and positive.

She was sitting cross legged, both feet on top of the other symmetrically. Her torso centered above the hips, eyes closed and posture relaxed. Her hands were above her thighs, palms facing upward while the tips of her thumbs and index fingers were brought together, forming a circle.

“You know” her voice rang “A concious beings soul constantly radiates both happiness and suffering” she sounded changed, more _celestial_ “so consciousness is really the prime cause of everything”

Her body glitched like a bad 3D effect for a moment, her body splitting into her three identical selves. They quickly moved to both of her sides and stood in about half a meter from her in the same pose. The one on the left fully white, and the one on the right fully black.

“Your kind is very obsessed with time, forgetting the fact that it was created by your minds and isn’t actually real.”

Her copies moved their lips simultaneously, not allowing any delays.

“You must know that eternity is now, that the future and the past are only different forms of a beings memory”

A sand clock appeared next to her in the black zone, its housing white and the sand in it black, pouring down from the top to the bottom.

“But only when the being isn’t living in the past and doesn’t run into the future”

Their eyes opened sharply

“Can his empire be ruled by **freedom** ”

In a bat of an eye the left clone disappeared in a white haze, and the right one turned into ash, only the original remaining.

Tony was trying to process her words. It seemed like she was talking about the same things and yet they were different.

“Tell me, Anthony”

His head shot up.

“What is evil?”

He thought for a moment, rolling the answer in his mouth with his tongue, contemplating if it was the right thing to say.

“Evil is a conscious, deliberate act committed to harm or offend other people who are not guilty of anything”

She tilted her head.

“Or more simply?”

“Acting “bad” while knowing what “good” is”

“What happens when you bring beauty into this world?” 

“It becomes magnificent” Tony answered surely

“And what happens when you bring destruction?”

He frowned.

“It becomes ruthless”

And that was the moment that Tony realized.

“You wanted to get this point across to me” he smiled numbly “It’s me who chooses between black and white, between good and evil, action and inaction”

His face morphed into a strange combination of proudness and sadness.

“That’s the meaning”

Her face split into a wide grin and she clapped her hands together.

The “negative-positive” attributes vanished, leaving them as they were at first when they met each other.

Tony looked at her with a delicate look.

She took a step forward, her feet leaving black traces with the pattern of her dark boots, they stuck to her feet like sticky gum, stretching until the connection was severed by distance. She came so close to him that he could feel her _freezing_ breathing on his face.

Tony was faced with an opportunity to look into her eyes from a close proximity.

He could see her pupils pulsating with every breath she took, the universe moving in her irises, and, for a second, he saw the spirits of the dead flying in there.

She launched herself forward quickly and put her hand to the back of his head, gripping his hair with her hand.

The moment her hand touched him all the despair, all the devastation and dismay vanished without a trace. 

Her hand was chillingly cold, but he didn’t feel it. 

His insides warmed with hope.

Hope for something good, something new.

Something he can accomplish.

She brought their foreheads together. Her eyes looking at him so _softly_.

He chuckled. 

“Never lose that smile, Anthony”

And here he was, Death showing him the path to the darkness lying in front of him. He didn’t ask any questions, just walked into it smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for tolerating this story :3
> 
> Leave comments pls. I really wonder if you enjoy this or my writing is crap.


	4. Space and Chitchat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ENJOY

When they finally emerged from the impatient darkness (He meant it literally, it was _touching_ him longingly and spreading its cold arms all over him), Tony found himself standing on a small, pitch-black platform that was floating in nothingness with a massive void under it. The platform was so dark that he didn’t realize at once that he had come out. It seemed to him that the world had been turned upside down, and what the sky was supposed to be was nothing else than the ocean itself with a bunch of glistening, colorful pearls stuck in the depths of it. Golden, silver, lavender, blue. The only thing that betrayed them as stars was their untamed twinkling and flickering in the endless gap.

He suddenly felt chillingly cold and boiling hot at the same moment. 

The reason for it, as it turned out, was the fact that he was in space, at the point of collision of both coldness of the cosmos, and the heat of the sun. 

Half of his face was illuminated by the golden yellow glimmer of the sun, and the other half was engulfed in darkness.

Those “negative-positive” Easter eggs just can’t leave him alone, can they?

He tried to inhale, forgetting that he was standing in the middle of space. Of course, oxygen didn’t fill his lungs, but he was hit with a really strong smell of something metallic, more specifically, it smelled like walnuts and brake pads of a motorbike.

Smells in space? That’s something new.

He turned his head to find the thing that the light originated from and found himself looking point-blank at the sun. He felt like he was looking at a bucket full of molten iron from above. The edges of it resembled a blazing crown. (Or a sparkling mane of a lion). The heat hit him in the face, but he didn’t feel any discomfort, nor did he feel any distress from the cold. 

He expected his eyes to burn from the brightness of the sun, to feel them fill with tears trying to wet his overly heated eyes, but nothing happened.

The newfound changes of his body didn’t scare or unnerve him, though he would’ve liked to know more about it, to find out what else changed and what were his limits.

But there was something that bothered him for a while now. The undying buzzing in his body, like a hive of bees made a nest in his chest and were flying freely in it exploring every bone and muscle, leaving some kind of residue on his organs that made him feel heavier than normal. He could feel it crackling at his fingertips occasionally, making him rub his hands together. It felt like he was touching something filled with static electricity.

The purplish hue disappeared from his body, leaving his skin a mixture of white and grey. It was odd, knowing that you were a walking corpse. He still didn’t know what his face looked like, though he knew that it couldn’t differ from his body, except, maybe, the cicatrix on his cheek, but it wouldn’t be far from truth either, due to the big and flashy scar tissue on his chest.

He moved his attention from the sun to the big, bright planet floating in front of him. His eyes widened and if there was oxygen in space, his breath would’ve caught in his throat. For a moment, he wondered how much emotions a human being expresses through its “organs”. Breathing (As in lungs). Heart rate. Blood pressure. Skin color. And now he was limited in almost all of them.

He looked at the planet intensively, and only one thing came to his mind.

‘It glows like a big lightbulb’

And it really did. It glowed like the biggest lightbulb he has ever seen.

There are some things in life that you just cannot describe, some things that you not only see, but also _feel_. That’s what he was feeling now.

The expression “awesome” is used to describe a myriad of everyday occurrences: A stylish car, a good invention, even a sandwich. But none of these things resemble genuine awe. Genuine awe leaves you in a state of sheer reverence, floored by fear or fascination, and often a transcendental mixture of both. That was what was happening to him.

The planet was gorgeous and immense. Really **enormous**. He remembered looking at photos of Earth taken by various satellites, glancing and thinking.

‘Oh, okay, this looks beautiful’

But all of them fully _paled_ in comparison to the real deal. He didn’t expect it to be this stunning, like you can reach out and _touch it_ with your hand.

The various colors spreading over the planet were covered with a white haze of clouds, and the edges of it had a bright blue light covering the planet like a blanket. (The atmosphere?)

He looked at the globe and wondered what his friends were doing. Where was Pepper? How was Rhodey doing? (Oh God, Rhodey) Were the fugitives caught? (Very unlikely) Did they even notice that he disappeared?

Now seeing Earth from space, he understood how important and unique it really was. The only planet in a few light years to have life on it. The only planet in close proximity to have all the necessary resources for life to exist. He began comparing it to an oasis in a desert, and as a man that walked in a dry desert for some time in search of rescue, he knew the value of an oasis. ‘An oasis against the backdrop of infinity’ 

Yes, the little blue drop in the ocean called ‘universe’ It may be comparably small, but it’s the only one they’ve got.

But because of these thoughts he began to feel more aversion to the human kind than he ever had before. 

‘When you see an oasis, you take care of it, **not trash it!** ’

Deforestation, air and water pollution, climate change, fresh water depletion, lack of food, energy depletion and so on.

Earth isn’t going to survive.

Humans are parasites, they need another organism, a host, to live in or on. They also need the _resources_ of their host that allow them to live and grow. Parasites are always in a lookout for an ideal host, and, unfortunately, Earth is a _perfect_ host for humanity.

He frowned indignantly and sighed in exasperation. 

**He hated being limited to his human status**

Lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice Death staring at him intensively from the other side of the platform. She didn’t utter a word, didn’t break him out of his haze, even though he had been staring at his surroundings for fifteen minutes already.

Seconds later, Tony turned his head and came face to face with her again. His frown melted from his expression and a wan smile conquered his face. Now that he could think more clearly a thought surfaced in his mind.

‘Her eyes look like they came out of a sci-fi movie’

He chuckled internally. 

But really, with all her “pupil dilating and shrinking” business it looked like she came out of a robot movie.

She was sitting at the edge of the platform, hands drawn behind her, holding her mass and balance while her knees dangled from the edge as she was moving them playfully.

Realizing that he has broken out of his trance, she patted the ground beside her, indicating him to come and sit alongside her.

He obliged.

The platform had some kind of a gravitation effect, that’s why they weren’t floating, was it?

He sat down and turned his head to look at her again only to find her gazing at him with severe interest already.

Her expression was very hard to read, during the small time they’ve been acquainted with each other, her expression, for the most part, was apathetic, so seeing her showing so much emotion so freely now amused him.

She turned her attention to the planet.

“You know, I’ve hated humanity during most of its existence” her face was back to her unemotional state, but her eyes were a completely different thing. He could see the hatred, the dislike she had for the human kind, and, coupled with the fact that he could see the Earth reflecting in her orbs, it was creating a certain amount of irony.

He didn’t interrupt her, just kept staring, waiting for her to get her point across.

“You’re strange beings. Each of you is a man with a capital ‘M’ , but when there are two of you, one of you is already _crap_.” 

Tony couldn’t explain how true her words were, even in addition to him. He tended to look at others from above because of his high intellect.

“Humanity’s life is a plain lie - internet addiction, mobile slavery, work and breeding. Over and over again. Their concept of freedom is to come home and click the buttons on the remote to watch the thousand of channels installed on their TV, spend money as they wish, and do things that _won’t have consequences_. That’s it. And they just... accepted it, I guess?”

She raised her eyes up to look at the sparkling stars. They winked at her and she smiled.

“Humans hate and despise each other, and that _mutual hatred_ is the **only** thing making them whole”

“To put it simply **Humanity can’t be human to humans**

She turned her head only to be greeted by the awestruck expression on Tony’s face. He agreed with some of it, he did, but he didn’t think that everything seemed so _bad_ to someone who looked from the outside.

“I don’t think that people hate each other” he suddenly interjected “I think they just don’t know how to express love because of how they were brought up, so they do it in a slightly crooked way. You just have to look closer, it’s easier for a man to love than to hate, and the ones that understand that are stronger than the rest”

He brought his hands to his chest and looked at them. Inspecting every crease and wrinkle. Then he quickly tucked them away under his underarms.

“There were several things that made me slightly change my opinion of you, of your kind” she cut in.

‘So she doesn’t think we’re completely useless?’

“I’ll tell you later about it”

Tony groaned in answer to that.

“For a being that dislikes humans you look very much like one” he said looking at her posture and physique.

“About that. I don’t have a real form”

Tony blinked

“I’ve just taken this form not to freak you out and be as normal as possible. Even bothered to recreate the anatomy and dress myself like you”

That explained the similar clothes.

“Let’s discuss why you’re here, shall we?”

Oh, he forgot that he was resurrected for a moment. He stiffened slightly. What would happen if he rejects whatever she asks of him? Maybe her conditions don’t coincide with his principles.

“Many people, and I’m not only talking about humans, tell pretty nasty things about death.” Her expression saddened, eyes wilted and her lips pursed. “Many would say that death is a bad thing, that it’s something to be feared of, something that has many, uh, _disadvantages_.” She came to a halt for a moment and resumed her speech in a second. “Yes, I don’t say that death is something to look up to, or worship for that matter, but it doesn’t mean that people have to act aggressively, angrily and hatefully towards it, after all, they don’t know what happens after it.”

Yeah, about that. Will she tell him if he asked?

“And what does happens after it?” he not so subtly asked”

She smiled sheepishly 

“Everything at its time, Anthony”

Every time she used his full name a frisson went down his whole body. He was still too shy around her to ask her to call him Tony. A~nd she refused to tell him what happens after death, great. This already is becoming quite complicated.

“So, as I was saying, people shouldn’t act aggressively towards death, because if not for me, most planets would’ve long ago starved their resources, the universe would’ve been full by now. Or simply put, chaos would’ve erupted”

That did make sense. If death wasn’t a thing, the consequences would’ve been dire.

“I am all about balance, equilibrium”  
She shifted her hands slightly, as if trying to prove a point. “But there are some situations... when balance shifts, too many beings die in a small amount of time. The reasons can be different: Genocide. Plague. War. Hunger. And so on”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her.

“Celestial beings aren’t really allowed to interject into such kind of things” she said raising an eyebrow in answer.

Something tickled inside of him. Like someone titillated his stomach with a feather.

‘I think I know where this is going’

“So I recruited beings from all around the universe to do these kind of things for me, and you, Anthony, can be one of them”

Was this really happening to him?

“I call the my merchants”

_He can literally be a Merchant of Death_

Suck it BROWN!

“What are the conditions and obligations of a merchant?”

He wasn’t about to go into this blindly, so he needed all the information he could get before he made a decision.

“A merchants obligations are, firstly, “she raised a finger ”obeying me, Death.” She raised the second finger ”Secondly, keeping the balance of life and death in the universe, that means killing people responsible for genocides, wars, or simply bringing cures for incurable diseases.”

“There are several conditions that decide if you can be a merchant or not, but don’t worry, you’ve already passed them all, and I may say, only 5 other beings in the universe have done it”

Some kind of proudness seeped through Tony like warm water and turned to cold ice in seconds. What if the conditions were something like ‘murdering half a million people during your life’? He tucked it somewhere in his mind to ask about later.

“So there are 5 other merchants now?”

“No”

He blinked

“But you just said that only 5 others have passed the conditions!” 

“That’s one of the things i want to talk about. You can stop being a merchant at any given moment, to die”

Oh

“So one of your merchants asked to die for real?”

“Yes, he did” She swallowed “He was the firs one I’ve ever had, and living for ages could be quite boring if I put it in his words”

“So you _do_ tell your merchants what happens after death?”

“I do, but at the moment you aren’t my merchant, are you?” She smirked 

Tony made a derisive snort.

“What happens if I don’t agree?” His decision was already made, but he was too interested to help it.

“You’ll die”

Plain and simple. No red roses and rainbows.

“Huh, well then”

He stood up.

“How do we do this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so ashamed in myself.  
> I’ve taken my exams in May and here are my results   
> 20/20 in History  
> 19/20 in Russian  
> 17/20 in English  
> 06/20 in my NATIVE language
> 
> OMG. I was enraged.  
> The passing point was 07/20
> 
> Obviously I failed and have to retake it in August, so don’t be surprised if the updates begin to lack. I have to study.
> 
> Thank you for tolerating this story.


	5. Meeting place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can really feel me getting tired of describing stuff at the end of the chapter.

Death raised her hand above her head. The movement was sharp and fast, as if she had done it a hundred times before that moment. Her fingers bent and stopped when they found each other, turning into a bundle. There was a loud click of fingerprints colliding, while everything next to them melted into colors. The stars began falling from the sooty sky, leaving upright, white stains, as if they were drops of milk falling down a pitch-black canvas. Everything mixed up together, the caramel-brown of the earth, the electric-blue of the oceans, the white of the clouds, the blazing-orange of the sun mixing with each other, akin to how several multicolored paints would mix in a single bucket, swirling like a colorful yule dropped from a child’s hand. Everything became too chromatic and fluorescent, making his surrounding go white instead of the nauseating collection of intermixed colors. 

Suddenly he felt his body bent into himself with unimaginable pressure. His muscles and bones forcing themselves into his organs. Tony felt like a big _fucking whale_ was hugging him, because his brain was ready to jump out of his skull and paint the whiteness surrounding him in a cocktail of pink and red. 

(Your eyeballs agree with your brain)

Invisible, tight ropes tied themselves to his hands, his knees and neck, pushing him down forcefully until he could only kneel. The gravity was suddenly too strong for him. His teeth greeted together while he let out a quite hiss. Tony wasn’t feeling any pain, but the discomfort was too much, as if he was being compressed into a black hole by the pressure surrounding his body.

It seemed to the universe that it wasn’t enough, so something resembling a 10k weight dropped on his back, punching the air leftovers from his lungs and making him fall on his all fours like an animal.

Before Tony’s brain could process what just happened, and ask the all mighty ‘What the heck?’ the pressure disappeared like a UFO that was about to be filmed by a shaky, 144p teapot.

At the same second his lungs rapidly filled with oxygen as he gasped loudly, making him look like a man that was just saved from drowning in the unforgiving clutches of the deep sea.

The sudden intake of breath made his throat feel like a bunch of ice-cubes made a salsa dance down to his lungs with a solemn intensity and grace.

It didn’t stop there, he felt saliva drooling from his mouth, down to his chin and onto his clothes, wetting his chest and shirt while he kept gasping and choking on the air around him.

His nails dug into the ground against his will, but he needed some kind of a reminder that he was still on the ground, he wasn’t flying in the nonchalant void called “space”, he wasn’t falling down.

Suddenly he felt that the ground wasn’t as dry as it had to be and was leaving wet remnants of something on his hands and under his nails, on his knees and forearms, soaking the clothes that were on him. The cold seeped through the material, and though it didn’t make him colder than he already was, it felt unpleasant. His head moved down to his hands to find the reason of the sudden wetness, and realized that he wasn’t on the platform anymore. No. His arms were forearm deep in the wet and sticky mud pool that he was currently half-sitting, half-lying in.

Tony felt an irremediable urge to cough his guts out, so he wasn’t surprised at the upcoming retch, but he still almost keeled over at the force of it. A bitter taste of something welled up in his mouth, so Tony assembled all the saliva he could and spit to the ground, the action soon followed by another set of coughs.

“Sorry” an apologetic voice came from behind him “All beings react the same way when they travel to different dimensions the first time”

Different dimensions?

This was getting weirder and weirder.

Tony gathered all the courage he had left from this little ‘trip’ and tried to push himself up, paying attention to his every movement so his knees won’t buckle over under him, because of the violent dizziness raging in his brain. It took him some time but he managed to stand straight, though his vision was still fucked.

Everything swam before his eyes like a bad painting made by watercolors.

He closed his eyes and evened his breathing, bringing his arm to his mouth to clean up the saliva from his chin and noticing a little too late, that his whole forearm to his wrist was caked in mud and dirt (and now your face is too, genius)

He half opened his eyes.

“Did you just say ‘Different dimensions?’”  
He asked in bewilderment, his body twitching a little to show his quandary.

“Oh, yes. This place is located in an entirely different dimension. It’s called ‘The blank-zone’ , only the ones approved by Death have access to this place” she said looking around.

“I’m not a lemon, you can’t just squeeze me all of a sudden without a warning” he muffled.

She raised an eyebrow innocently and smiled like a saint.

“I’ll be sure to give a warning next time”

Tony raised both his eyebrows in answer and gave her a ‘are you even real?’ look.

Okay. He didn’t expect Death to be such a troll. 

This is absolutely weird.

His thoughts were interrupted by her voice.

“I’ve had this place since the days of my creation, but I began using it only when the thought about merchants appeared in my mind, and I have to say that it wasn’t really that long ago, almost ten thousand years”

Ten thousand years ‘not that long ago’. 

Tony snickered. 

Humanity was still living in caves and trying to master fire at that point. It means that even when humanity was still gaining its first bits of intellect and sense, there were many life forms in the universe that were advanced enough to rage full blown genocides and wars against themselves or each other, because if he had to guess, there were bound to have been wars between planets somewhere in the universe.

For a moment, he imagined the amount of destruction, the death, the grief, the loss and pain that these creatures had to experience, to go through. 

Were they as easy to manipulate as humans? Because humans _are_ laughably easy to control. They mostly act like sheep, one says, others repeat. If a human is convinced by someone (mostly governments and major social personas) that, for example, some kind of group of poeple that have a different skin color, a different religion, a different gender or speak a different language - are a threat to you, to your children and friends, you stop recognizing them as human beings. You act to them like they’re animals, a threat. Something to be destroyed and forgotten. It doesn’t matter that the man you’re abusing or trying to kill has been your neighbor or friend for years and hasn’t done anything to you. What matters is that they’re different, they’re _worse_ than you, because _you heard_ the others say it out loud, every morning, every evening. It doesn’t matter if you read it in a newspaper, heard someone in a box say it, or your other social accomplices discussed it with you present. The fact is that you heard, and you believed.

**And you acted**

There were many examples to bring, too many.

Tony mostly believed that humans _do_ actually want peace. They don’t want to fight each other, don’t want to kill and hate, but most often the ones that _inflict_ that twisted hatred against each other are more convincing. 

Words have power, and all things with power are dangerous.

The whole world consists of notions expressed by words. Take the sense out of the word and *poof!*, the whole world is in _chaos_.

People now mostly forgot about the saint mission of words, they use them like _toilet paper to wipe the silence._

Words like “justice”, “truth”, “honor”, “God”, have lost their meaning, nowadays people feel mostly sick when they hear them, but recently they meant something. Something important and valuable, not to be used with such ill-care and frequency.

And who turned them into white noise?

Politicians, lawyers, priests, admen.

Everyone that uses words as work tools.

And that includes himself.

He sighed tiredly and decided to focus on what was going on at that moment.

The dizziness was mostly gone, and he wasn’t feeling like the ground wanted to hug him and kiss his forehead anymore, so he decided to fully open his eyes and focus on whatever was going on.

The smell of forest hit him almost immediately, the sweetly fresh smell of tree-barks and wet grass. He felt his knees sink in the soft and viscous soil.

They were in some kind of woods, surrounded by really tall and thick trees scattered around them in a random way, they had straight, grey trunks, smooth-barked except for the rough basal, with sickle-shaped green leaves, taking most of the area in which they were currently located, except the perfectly even constructed pathway leading to somewhere in the woods. It was mostly dark, the twigs at the top fully blocking the night sky. He heard the wind shake the trees and make the twigs strum about each other, like bones clinking in a bag.

The forest had something peaceful in its sullen ambiance.

“Why are we here?” 

“Come on” She motioned with her hand to the pathway.

She didn’t answer the question.

Tony hit his clothes lightly in hope to shake off the dust stuck on it, and moved to the pathway, his feet caressing the velvet flesh of the forest ground.

The pathway was made of grey cobblestones stuck in the ground with the soil visible at the edges. The surface of the cobblestones was smooth and polished, so no one would bump into an obstacle while walking.

He felt the wind hit his body like cold water, sleeping under his clothes and sending goosebumps all over. He heard the trees rustle from the freezing touch of air’s breath. He saw them move under the force of the breeze like a pendulum in a grandfather clock.

It was important for Tony to focus on his senses for a moment. Feel everything around him. Hear every swish and chirr. See every shade and sway.

He still couldn’t locate anything resembling life.

The atmosphere overall was melancholic. (Dead and dry i would say)

The darkness creeped and loomed all over him, he could feel it drawing closer to him, pressing down on his shoulders. For a second he even felt it _pat him on the back_ , like an old friend would do. Something like that was a very serious thing for Tony. He wouldn’t even take something from a strangers hand, not even talking about letting anyone touch him, but this thing, this uncertain feeling in him, it screamed _Right-RIGHT_ - **RIGHT** He felt stupid for a moment, because he was pretty sure It was just his imagination. Nothing to drool on.

As they walked on, Tony thought about Death, whether he should trust her, after all he knows close to nothing about her, but that _feeling_ inside of him, that undying buzz and rush trusted her without a hint of doubt. 

He wondered what his friends were doing at the moment. He was sure they were afraid.

Afraid for _him_.

They had no idea where he was, and he himself didn’t too, if you look at the situation.

Tony had many questions about this situation, he was just waiting for a convenient opportunity to voice them.

Will he be able to go back to Earth? Meet his friends? Maybe kick Roger’s ass?

Lost in thoughts he didn’t notice how they left the woods behind their backs and came out into the open.

At the corner of his eye he noticed the darkness of the night be punctuated by small glimmers of light. Gentle, illuminating dazzle that ate away at the darkness. A warm and sugary glow filled the thick atmosphere.

He saw the hills scattered around like pillows on the ground, covered in a blanket of luminous dots, as if someone wrapped them with Christmas lights of the same color. They were slowly rising and falling, like sea waves.

‘Fireflies?’

After such a long time in darkness, their light was something strange to him. Something magical, enchanted even.

“Mesmerizing, isn’t it?” 

Tony looked at her eyes, the eyes that were reflecting the warm yellow-green light of the fireflies. Of all the things he expected to see here, it wasn’t this. Maybe some mystical, scary creatures, but fireflies?

“Earth is full of such beautiful creatures...”  
Her expression turned sad, as if she was hurt by the fact that these creatures lived on Earth. Among humans.

How fucked up should a kind be to even make Death wary of them?

The sky was so full of stars that it looked more like a box with jewelry more at that point.

His gaze turned to the horizon, behind the hills, and saw the shape of something there. Something big. 

Tony’s eyes locked with the shape and he noticed that it was a building. A castle to be more precise, illuminated by the soft-silver glow of the moon above them.

The castle looked like it was built chaotically in two styles. The first part looked like it was a simple, firm castle, but the other part was built more mystically. He had to get close to see more.

He pointed his finger to the castle and said. 

“What’s that?”

Death looked away from the sea of fireflies and to the direction that Tony was pointing to.

“That’s the meeting place of all the merchants” she said casually “after becoming one, if you don’t want to go back to Earth, or anywhere else in the universe, you can stay there” her hand raised, palm upwards, pointing at the castle.

So he was allowed to go back to Earth, that still didn’t mean that he was allowed to meet his friends or people that knew him, for all he knows, he’s dead on Earth.

Won’t it create too many questions?

It is the worst case scenario, because Pepper will have to protect all his technology from curious eyes and thieves that will sell it to war profiteers.

Just thinking about what could happen if his technology leaked sent chills all over his body.

But there’s another scenario in which he’s MIA. That was actually better, his friends won’t have to grieve for his death, his technology will be safely protected.

He has to have a Q&A session with Death soon.

So without another word they moved. 

The only way to inspect the castle better was to get closer to it.

The walk wasn’t as long as he expected it to be, had to pass some nasty hills, but he managed, and soon was in close enough range to view the castle more carefully.

The normal part of it was made of seven slim, square towers that dwarfed everything below them and were connected by reinforced thin walls made of some kind of silver stone. Windows, dark and gaping, were scattered here and there on the walls in no apparent pattern. Moonlight pilled and reflected of its sturdy and polished walls.

The castle stood proudly and firmly like a bold, night warrior. Knowing its importance and need. The toothy towers were gloomily looking up in a search of a danger.

If this was built ten thousand years ago, then it had to be old, scarred and cracked, but it was perfectly straight, solid and clean, with no apparent wet marks, moss and grapevines. 

Simply put, it didn’t meet his expectations of a castle, but he was happy for that.

The other part, though, looked scary and frightening. It consisted fully of cone shaped, sharp towers that looked like claws of some kind of creature, trapped under the toothless jaws of the earth - a huge grave that devours any living thing and misinterprets them in its cold, stinking womb. It tried to get out and reach its desired freedom, to escape the mawing mouth of the old crone-earth, and its gaping, black, trap of a throat, but froze somewhere in the middle with no way out.

He shuddered at the sight. The blackness of it sending ominous waves to his side, making his palms sweat.

“Are you coming?”

Tony noticed Death standing at the entrance of the castle, two big wooden ebony doors stood firmly beside her, ready to open by the command of the master of the place.

The tower was surrounded by trees, unlike the woods they were not scattered carelessly, but planted with a straight pattern. They looked like soldiers that were ready to defend the castle if needed.

The doors opened and they entered the castle.

Upon entering he immediately noticed the red carpet stretching from his feet and to the end of the room. And the room was quite big, three big pools would’ve fit in there, Tony thought, and he was thinking only about the length and not the width.

The ceiling was so far away that he could hardly make out where it ended, only the big three chandeliers hanging from it were the indications that the ceiling did indeed end somewhere.

On each side of the hall room were ten strong any thick columns, made of black marble with white spots that looked like milk drops in soot. The walls and floor were made of a cold, gray stone covering the majority of the area. 

On the walls behind the columns were little wooden balconies, one for each one.

On each column there was a big flag hanging, made of red cotton and attached to it by a silver stick.

On the flags there was a star drawn in a circle, but not the same as the sign of anarchy. Both the circle and the star were fairly straight, and although the star was out of the circle, each end of the star leaved it evenly.

There was an italic “m” written in the middle of the star with a slight edge that looked like a tail of a demon.

The star was made of golden cotton on the background of the red one.

At the end of the room was a kind of a scene, which you could climb onto through five stair steps. On the way to the stage there were large semi-columns, or, more precisely, stands for dirty-purple crystals in the form of flames.

On the wall above the scene, a pointed gonfalon was hung with the same image as the other flags.

The hall was illuminated by a strange mixture of violet and sky-blue.

“Wow” he breathed out, while making a step to one of the columns.

He put his hand on it and felt the coldness seep into his hand and onto his bones, making his hand go strangely numb. Tony abruptly drew his hand back, and caught it with the other in front of his chest, rubbing it carefully.

A sudden breeze hit him on the back, making his neck chillingly cold.

_Someone was behind him_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya people. Heard of summer holidays? 
> 
> Yes?
> 
> I didn’t, because my teachers are breathing on my neck :3
> 
> I’m sorry for updating so late, the next chapter is gonna be more explanatory.
> 
> Comment please, they’re really motivating.
> 
> Thank you for tolerating this story :3


	6. Ritual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup.

The cold on his neck didn't feel like the bitter cold he felt in Siberia, nor was it normal in any way. Even in Siberia, the cold felt harsh, painful. During his last moments there, _the moments in which he still could feel at all_ , he felt like every inch of him was on fire, every cell screaming in united agony, like he wasn't in Siberia, but in hell, drowning somewhere in a cauldron of lava made specificially for him.

What was happening now didn't fall under any definition of cold he had felt in his life. Normal cold didn't fill this... strange. It stuck to his body like a dump, musty, thick blanket, clinging to every part of his pale skin, and, it seemed to Tony, that when the cold would retire, it would also _shred_ half of his skin of him before leaving with it. 

Everything felt incredibly heavy, his legs, his torso, arms, eyelids, even the air around him became too heavy to hold his neck upright confidently. His surroundings felt surreal, as if he was moving through thick syrup, as if the world around him had broken down into pieces of little tactile sensations and broken him along with it.  
One of his fragments was cold, the other was burning up. One was sleeping, the other was wide awake. One was shaking, the other didn’t move at all, and all of them tried to wipe each other out of existence.

Was this all happening in his head? It felt too wrong, too faulty to be real. 

For a moment Tony considered that none of this ever happened, and he was home, sitting on his sofa, watching a broken TV that could only show a black and white hive of bees flying chaotically on the screen. 

That’s what it felt like.

He was there, but he wasn’t. 

He was the only actor on the stage, the curtains pulled, all lights shone on him, everyone looked up at him in expectation, but he didn’t have a script which he could follow.

Tony felt like a snake. A snake that swallowed another animal, but not a normal one. It was rotten, addle and corrupt. So he was laying on his belly, trying to digest the nightmares, the insanity and the poisonous wildness that the creature was full of. And then he fell into a restless sleep to exceed the evil bursting him from the inside.

Some of his memories flashed in front of his eyes quickly.

_Howard teaching him how to put together a car. Peggy giving him a gift on Christmas. His mother teaching him how to play the piano. Edwin Jarvis helping him tie his tie. Rhodey and him goofing around in their dorm. The day Pepper pepper sprayed her way into his office. Happy trying to protect him even when there was no danger. The creation of JARVIS._

And he realized.

None of them were recent.

Not a single warm and cozy memory in the last 10 years.

There were good ones, of course, but none of them had the special _spark_ of _friendship_ , _love_ and _happiness_

Desperation creeped upon him unnoticed and started taking possession of him. Little by little. With no rush, like an infection. Everything was slowly going black, the greedy darkness swallowing everything it could reach, everything it could touch, spreading through the room with no one to stop it. And then there was darkness. Everything had been devoured by the bitter nothingness, and with the last shimmer of light, it seemed, the last bit of hope disappeared too.

Tony had seen darkness before, everyone had, but... not quite like this one. This was a darkness that robbed everyone of their strongest emotions and replaced them with paralyzing fear. It hung heavily in the air, penetrated his skin like moisture, threatening to soak his clothes.

In the dark one can only move by touch, and the world is made up of the little pieces of information that can be gained from the still active senses. That’s the problem of not being able to see. You are aware of the parts, but cannot define the whole. Too many mistakes. He knew that his eyes still existed only because he felt himself blink, even though he knew he didn’t have to, as he had no use for them, and it wasn’t like he could feel the sting caused by not blinking.

It was too alarming, too cold, too _silent_. The darkness was swallowing him, the voracious, rampant darkness. He could see his flesh darken, feel his thoughts go bleak, he could even feel his fate lour, and the worst part being that... he wasn't able to do anything. 

He had no power, nothing to grab onto, no one to give him a hand and pull him out of the damned bog he was stuck in. Nobody to hear his screams, nobody to watch him beg. 

Tony resisted, but the darkness seemed to be stronger. Sometimes he was ready to put up with it and dive into it with his head, to let it completely devour him with his bones, to grind and destroy him, but he shouldn’t give up. 

Not now, not ever.

It felt like the first seconds of his awakening. He remembered when the darkness enveloped him, the nagging pain when it crawled into him, into his eyes, his mouth, ate away at him like an invisible beast, sticking its teeth in his flesh and feasting on his misery.

He needed something. Some reprieve, something to hold on. He needed someone to tell him that he was going to get out, to hear, to feel, to smell, to see. 

But there was no one with him. He was alone. Terribly and utterly alone. Only darkness and cold to keep him company. _He was stuck_

He was never going to get out. Death tricked him, of course she would. He was a _mass murderer_ , how could he believe that he would have a chance to do something good? That someone would want to give him hope?

Tony felt a tightness in his chest so pronounced that it actually felt like choking, dizziness so strong like he's been hanging upside down for hours. His thoughts were mixed up, irrational and sluggish, filled with anxiety and self-doubt.

HE WAS STUCK

STUCK 

_STUCK!_

‘Okay, calm down!’

His mind screamed at him to slow down. This wasn’t the end of the world, he had to look at things more rationally.

‘Okay, take a breath’

His throat tried to comply, it really did, but it felt like he was trying to inhale a rock.

‘Calm down and think _damn it!’_

Tony was getting desperate, his mind running faster with every second. A little more and he may short out.

Death wouldn’t have gone all out and revived him if she was about to kill him again. (Maybe not kill, but make you suffer for a tortured eternity?)  
Right?

There must be something he has to do. 

Or... maybe there is really no way out of this one.

It felt like the atmosphere was sucking out every once of hope he had somehow spared. Ate away at his emotions, leaving only the empty carcass to represent his body. It took his heart into its claws, squeezing it with the freezing touch of despair and annihilating every bit of life he had circulating through his veins.

‘STOP’

Tony closed his eyes and tried not to drown in the messy quagmire of thoughts. Everything was happening so rapidly that he didn’t even notice his body shaking. 

‘It’s okay! It’s okay!’

His body shook with the tremors, and Tony felt like a leaf that fell from a tree. 

‘It’s okay, breathe!’

How did breathing even feel like? The air entering his nostrils and then leaving or the opposite?

‘ _IT’S **NOT** OKAY’_

It’s like a void! A dark, never ending void that consumes everything, so you’re left feeling nothing, only an empty plastic doll remains, so hollow that it can only lurk in the said void, avoiding human contact, because it’s emptiness is so big it can’t pretend to be ‘ _Okay_.

‘ **NOTHING IS OKAY!**.

Everyone walks around all day, smiling, laughing, pretending that everything is and will always be okay. 

That happy face is so _engrained_ on their faces that it can’t seem to _come off_.

They walk around him and they talk about nothing, _nothing_ , **nothing** , but instead the talk loud, _loud_ , **loud!**.

Every day of his existence on Earth was torture. People with paper faces, paper emotions and iron masks circling around him, trying to pick at him, manipulate him, seduce him, kill him, hurt him, use him. 

And when they took the last bit of what he could give, when they took the last piece of faith, when the last scrap of humanity was taken, they went for his eyes. 

Like vultures. 

Picking at the corpse and still trying to gain something from it.

A silver needle pierced his brain and he came to a halt.

‘It’s not okay’

His emotions felt like a thick fire. He was burning, he was freezing. Inside he was fireworks, rage, frustration, fear. 

‘It’s _not_ okay’

People spitting on him and acting like they’re better than him.

‘It’s _not_ okay’

Almost everyone turning their backs on him and abandoning him.

‘It’s _not_ okay’

Him looking like a damn hedgehog with all the knives sticking out of his back.

‘It’s _not_ okay’

People come and abuse you. People come and tear your heart out.  
People come and use you. People come and _go_.

‘It’s **not** okay’

He could feel something rising up his wrists, entering his elbows then shoulders and jumping from one blade onto another, like an electrical discharge.

His hands became hungry, and his eyes did too, as if they had to look at something, at anything, at whatever there is.

He felt his jaw vibrate, his eyes dangle in their sockets.

To satisfy the hunger in his hands he covered his eyes with them, pressing equally on both eyeballs, as if trying to force them to be still.

A stupid empty man.

(And when did you manage to get empty? When did everything get scooped out?)

He felt something embracing him, like a cold winter fog. It was silent, the kind of silence that can be felt, because it followed you wherever you went, building up a kind of pressure behind your back. And Tony felt it, the pressure getting stronger with every minute.  
He was being flown in to the void more and more. Each. Passing. Second.

He imagined himself, all of his body, face, eyes, mouth filled with darkness, and ears filled with silence.

Because when you spend so much time looking at darkness, it starts to look in answer.

But it didn’t burn him. It _warmed_ him.

As if he was finally where he belonged. So comfortable and safe. Feelings he lost somewhere during his life. 

And so there he was. Standing in the dark and looking at nothing. Waiting... even he didn’t know for what.

Darkness develops a sense of some kind of freedom, coupled with amazing vulnerability. And we allow all this to ourselves, because we know that it will certainly keep all our secrets. The darkness shrouding us from all sides is like a warm home blanket that promises warmth and protection.

The dark was wordless, but still all-understanding. It was calm and majestic, ready to explode into thousands of small fragments at any moment.

We instinctively fear the dark. We instinctively expect danger and death from it. We do not understand that death chooses time herself. Comes whenever she sees fit.

Maybe we should be scared of the light and not the dark.

Maybe we should be scared of our shine and not our dimness.

After all, it’s easier to be yourself in the dark.

Loneliness and Darkness, the only eternal, faithful companions, incapable of betrayal.

The lack of light that bothered him at first became normal. Comfortable even. The world was etched in charcoal. The once vibrant colors of the world only a vivid dream.

This was a strange, obscure and alien world. But at the same time it wasn’t scary at all.

This was a new page. A new book waiting to be written.

Once he had a life. One he had a choice. Once he had a chance. Once he had a family. He tried to protect the things he had, but in doing so, he himself became a threat.

A sudden surge of energy shook his body, thousand men screaming behind him in rage, ready to topple anyone standing on his way. He felt the raw power of darkness flow through him like ice, burning every vein, but still not causing him pain. It was disturbing, dark, powerful! Something vivid, something majestic, alive, new! It made him feel scared yet confident and fearless, because darkness won’t betray him, it won’t judge, it won’t leave. He knew it, he was sure of it.

Why? We ask.

Because he won’t betray _himself_

He and darkness aren’t separate entities, they’re one and the same. It’s not them, it’s **him**.

**He’s a Merchant of Death**

And at that moment the room regained its color. Everything becoming visible again. The columns, the carpet, the flags, the gonfalon, Death standing in front of him with someone he didn’t know. 

She raised her hand, palm upwards, and pointed at him.

“Welcome to the team”

The man beside her smirked brightly and so did Tony.

Yeah.

He can work with this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good God, that took a lot of time. I said that the next chapter was going to be explanatory, but I didn’t expect that the original carcass I had for this chapter would change for fifty times before I felt satisfied with what I’ve got.
> 
> Thank you for tolerating my bull writing, really. How do you even read this?

**Author's Note:**

> Interesting fact. RDJ’s and Heath Ledger’s Russian dub voice is the same person. (The dubber is amazing by the way)
> 
> You may criticize this work and point at all its mistakes so I can make my writing better. I’m sorry for all the mistakes made.
> 
> Thank you for tolerating this story :3


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